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Because they can't can't can't!

Kim Hollis: Australia, the Nicole Kidman/Hugh Jackman romantic epic from director Baz Luhrmann, earned $20 million over five days despite a $100+ million budget. How disastrous a result is this for Fox?

Brandon Scott: The budget is disastrous. The results I actually thought were surprisingly strong, but alas, seeing that budget makes me see the other side. Ouch! I can't imagine why they would give Baz $100+ million to film a single picture. I mean, giving him that to make four to five movies, to spread out as he so saw fit...maybe. He's got some visual flair, no doubt, but that is blockbuster money. I would say in this recession, they more than want their refund. Too bad it's not Circuit City...you can return anything there!

Max Braden: That's just criminal. (get it? Australia?) I'm not sure Peter Jackson and Will Smith could have opened much bigger than that. When a film is named after a continent you can't really expect audiences to think "Now there's the story hook I've been waiting to see." Think of Titanic. The object is to stay afloat as long as possible. Okay, bad example.

Scott Lumley: Man, those numbers really are from "Down Under". You have to wonder why this got greenlit for this kind of budget. Historically these kind of movies don't generate revenue in the range that this budget would justify. I think there's a good chance that Baz just used up all his leeway in Hollywood.

Reagen Sulewski: He should have titled it Australian Christmas.

Shane Jenkins: This was a didgeri-don't. Hello? Is this thing on? Anyway, Australia has so many strikes against it (epic running time, Nicole Kidman, digital cattle) that I'm a little surprised it managed the number it did. The trailers did a good job of obscuring the film's innate Baz Luhrmann-ness, but it's a strange movie, and I'm curious to see what word-of-mouth will be like. I have to wonder if Fox knew what they were getting into.





David Mumpower: I'm going to learn from the mistakes of my counterparts and avoid the urge to make awful jokes about the country-continent of Australia. This is something called learning curve, something Fox could have demonstrated by looking at the financial performances of Baz's two previous "hits". If Romeo+Juliet and Moulin Rouge! had combined North American receipts of $104 million, why is Australia getting $100 million? Brandon has this one drilled. That should have been the total budget of his next few projects, not the money given to one trainwreck. I recognize that foreign receipts were a big factor in this, but with lousy reviews and little buzz, even Moulin Rouge!'s $120 million in international revenue appears ambitious. Fox and Baz (ooh, I have a new idea for a sitcom!) spit the bit here.

Daron Aldridge: The only saving grace would be that this one might have broader international appeal, like Troy. It will be interesting to see how well it is received in its namesake country. It baffles me that Fox would greenlight such a huge budget for a risky project that had high potential for limited appeal.

Jason Lee: In my mind, this was never a film that was going to make the bulk of its money on opening weekend. Baz needed solid word-of-mouth and critical acclaim to recoup his budget back over a series of weekends leading up to the new year and I think, sadly, that this film has the stink of failure all over it.

Jamie Ruccio: Does Sarah Palin know that Australia is a continent *and* a country? She'd probably consider it a trick question.

Okay, now that the requisite joke is out of the way, the opening is a unmitigated disaster relative to budget. But I don't know that even in hindsight it was that easy to predict. The trailers and commercials looked fairly impressive. It's exactly the kind of movie that, by the looks of it, would have attracted several key demos (okay, men wouldn't have to have guns pointed at their genitals to get them to see what really seemed like a film for their dates). This weekend's openers very much confuse me. Its only hope that the Christmas legs, DVD sales and international market will make this seem anything but a disaster.

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